Each year, many youngsters in our community find themselves uneducated, under qualified or unemployed at pivotal points in their lives. Too many are unprepared for life’s challenges and heading down a path leading nowhere, without guidance, direction or hope of a brighter future. Thankfully, there are business and civic leaders and organizations in our community that are committed to preparing and helping these youngsters to reach a future of success. These individuals serve as guiding lights for the young people in our community, and their leadership continues to serve as a model for us all. Former Wisconsin Senator and President of the Milwaukee Bucks Herb Kohl and Charles Harvey, chief diversity officer and vice president for community affairs at Johnson Controls, are two such leaders and their contributions to youth development have been nothing short of exemplary. In addition to his service as a four-term senator for the State of Wisconsin, Mr. Kohl established the Herb Kohl Education Foundation Award program in 1990 to provide annual grants to 100 graduating seniors, 100 teachers and 100 schools throughout Wisconsin. To date, Mr. Kohl’s foundation has awarded $8.2 million in support of education, ensuring that thousands of young people throughout the greater Milwaukee area are educated, inspired and well-prepared for successful futures. Mr. Harvey, who also serves as president of the Johnson Controls Foundation, leads the charitable branch of a company committed to distributing grants of more than $7 million each year to support initiatives like education and social services. Through his roles at Johnson Controls and his service on the boards of several of Milwaukee’s leading philanthropic organizations, including the United Way of Southeast Wisconsin and the Milwaukee Public Policy Forum, Mr. Harvey serves as a community leader, an inspiration for many young people in our community and personally embodies the corporate culture of philanthropy at Johnson Controls. I am proud to serve as the chairman of the Fellowship Open, one of the country’s largest diversity charity golf outings, which will honor those two men this year. At the 13th annual Fellowship Golf Outing on Friday, August 16, both Mr. Kohl and Mr. Harvey will be honored for their character and contributions to our youth. Mr. Kohl will receive the Fellowship Open Legends Award for his contributions in government services, business and philanthropy, and Mr. Harvey will receive the Fellowship Open Community Leader Award. Both Mr. Kohl and Mr. Harvey represent the outstanding attributes and steadfast commitment to the youth in our community that so many of our Fellowship Open attendees possess. We applaud Mr. Kohl and Mr. Harvey for the work they have done thus far and look forward to awarding them for the legacies they have built in service to so many people, especially young people, through their outstanding business and civic leadership. John W. Daniels, Jr. is chairman of Quarles & Brady, LLP, the chairman of the Fellowship Open and a long-time advocate of youth development and diversity in the business community.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Myrle Cooper, a retired Black faculty member at Minnesota’s St. Cloud State University (SCSU), submitted the following letter to the editor about what he calls the mistreatment (if not outright racism shown) towards Black students who attend SCSU. Though this is a Minnesota issue, it still impacts Wisconsinites, especially Black Wisconsin students who are preparing to attend the school or are high school students seeking a college to attend. We think Mr. Cooper’s letter bears attention by our readers, many of whom are helping their children decide on what college their child will go to.

St. Cloud State University (SCSU) is in the bastion or citadel of racism, St. Cloud, Minnesota. It’s a last place aversion community where slaves were illegally and secretly held (1853-1865) by Appalachian whites barely able to feed themselves.

Since St. Cloud ranks high on Minnesota’s FBI hate crimes lists, SCSU has trouble recruiting, retaining and graduating Blacks and others of color. Black student attrition rates are particularly high. For example, SCSU claimed 385 total “African American or Black” students enrolled in fall 2006. Six years later, by August 2012, only 27 Blacks had graduated.

Quite simply, most Black students voted with their feet and transferred to colleges and universities in more accepting, diverse and safer communities. (“[U.S. Department of] “Justice official to test racial climate;” St. Cloud Times, 8/1/1998; “Molotov cocktail used in attack: Another violent incident spurs students to question safety in St. Cloud and at SCSU;” University Chronicle, 11/16/1998; “SASSO/Somali community organization building firebombed;” St. Cloud Times, 11/17/2002; “St. Cloud ranks high on hate crimes list: City was 2nd in state for number of race-based incidents in 2003;” St. Cloud Times, 11/23/2004; “Reported hate crimes up sharply;” St. Cloud Times, 11/20/2007; “Is it safe to send our children to St. Cloud?” editorial: Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, 2/7/2007; “St. Cloud officials dispute dubious distinction;” Star Tribune, 11/25/2007)

Unlike other Minnesota communities where business owners, city government, and college or university administrators value money spent by students of all colors and aggressively attack racism for community image and income sake, if not sincerity, St. Cloud has yet to be civilized.

Efforts to avoid investigations and scrutiny forced SCSU to cook its books by illegally and unilaterally altering transcripts, changing and deleting student grades (federal crimes when student grants and loans are involved). SCSU counts as its own, Blacks who transfer away then “graduate elsewhere.”

Currently, SCSU is being investigated by the FBI and the Regional Department of Education’s Inspector General. (“Feds asking about transcript changes at St. Cloud State University;” Minnesota Public Radio, 7/3/2013; “Feds look into grade charges;” Star Tribune, 7/6/2013)

SCSU must recruit Black students to satisfy diversity expectations.

Since Twin Cities’ high school counselors, parents and prospective Black students are more suspicious, SCSU depends increasingly on Black students from outstate, suburbs and neighboring states. Madison and Milwaukee are targets.

After all, it’s assumed Blacks so far away know much less about St. Cloud racism.

The scuttlebutt is that Attorney General Eric Holder is poised to say what has long been obvious to anyone who has the faintest notion about how the wildly failed, flawed war on drugs has been waged for three decades.

The obvious is that the war on drugs has been a ruthless, relentless and naked war on minorities, especially African-Americans.

In the coming weeks, Holder may tell exactly how he’ll wind that war down. It shouldn’t surprise if he does.

President Obama and Holder have been hinting for a while that it’s time to rethink how the war is being fought and who its prime casualties have been.

Their successful push a few years back to get Congress to finally wipe out a good deal of the blatantly racially skewed harsh drug sentencing for crack versus powder cocaine possession was the first hint.

Another is the mixed signals that both have sent about federal marijuana prosecutions, sometimes tough, sometimes lax.

But if, and more likely when, Holder acts on much needed and long overdue drug law reforms, he’ll do it standing on solid ground.

Past surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the sex and drug habits of Americans and a legion of other similar surveys have tossed the ugly glare on the naked race tainted war on drugs. They found that whites and blacks use drugs in about the same rate

Yet, more than 70 percent of those prosecuted in federal courts for drug possession and sale (mostly small amounts of crack cocaine) and given stiff mandatory sentences are blacks.

Federal prosecutors and lawmakers in the past and some at present still justify the disparity with the retort that crack cocaine is dangerous and threatening, and lead to waves of gang shoot-outs, turf battles, and thousands of terrorized residents in poor black communities. In some instances, that’s true, and police and prosecutors are right to hit back hard at the violence.

The majority, however, of those who deal and use crack cocaine aren’t violent prone gang members, but poor, and increasingly female, young blacks. They clearly need treatment, not long prison stretches.

It’s also a myth that powder cocaine is benign and has no criminal and violent taint to it.

In a comprehensive survey in 2002, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the White House’s low profile task force to combat drug use, attributed shoplifting, burglary, theft, larceny, money laundering and even the transport of undocumented workers in some cities to powdered cocaine use.

It also found that powder cocaine users were more likely to commit domestic violence crimes.

The report also fingered powder cocaine users as prime dealers of other drugs that included heroin, meth and crack cocaine.

The big difference is that the top-heavy drug use by young whites — and the crime and violence that go with it — has never stirred any public outcry for mass arrests, prosecutions, and tough prison sentences for white drug dealers, many of whom deal drugs that are directly linked to serious crime and violence.

Whites unlucky enough to get popped for drug possession are treated with compassion, prayer sessions, expensive psychiatric counseling, treatment and rehab programs, and drug diversion programs. And they should be.

But so should those blacks and other non-whites victimized by discriminatory drug laws.

A frank admission that the laws are biased and unfair, and have not done much to combat the drug plague, would be an admission of failure.

It could ignite a real soul searching over whether all the billions of dollars that have been squandered in the failed and flawed drug war — the lives ruined by it, and the families torn apart by the rigid and unequal enforcement of the laws — has really accomplished anything.

This might call into question why people use and abuse drugs in the first place — and if it is really the government’s business to turn the legal screws on some drug users while turning a blind eye to others?

The greatest fallout from the nation’s failed drug policy is that it has further embedded the widespread notion that the drug problem is exclusively a black problem.

This makes it easy for on-the make politicians to grab votes, garner press attention, and balloon state prison budgets to jail more black offenders, while continuing to feed the illusion that we are winning the drug war.

In an interview, Holder on that point was blunt, “There’s been a decimation of certain communities, in particular communities of color.”

This is no accident. The policy deliberately targeted those communities due to a lethal mix of racism, criminal justice system profit, political expediency, and media fed public mania over drug use.

This is why Obama and Holder have delicately, but to their credit, publicly inched toward a rethink of the drug war, including who it benefits and who it hurts. They should be applauded for that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a frequent MSNBC contributor. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los Angeles and KPFK Radio and the Pacifica Network. Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter.

It’s 9 a.m. and I’m anticipating this Tuesday’s morning discussion. I’ve been employed as a tutor/life coach for a year plus here at Green Bay Correctional Institution. My students are the mentally ill, men who belong in a mental asylum, not prison.

My supervisor-the teacher-is a middle aged Black man from the south named Bob Goynes. He’s been living and working at Green Bay Correctional Institution for the last 30-years.

Mr. Goynes usually chooses the subject for our Tuesday morning discussion, which ranges from personal hygiene, to the social implications of visual art, to racial politics.

With his eclectic interest and the students eccentric personalities, the discussion usually falls into one of these three styles: 1) A monologue: One person dominates the group with a rant or a ramble; 2) A dialogue: Well thought out ideas are exchanged with falsehoods sifted out and truths acknowledged, or 3) An argument: Two people fuss and cuss at each other.

We begin this morning by removing the desks from the classroom and positioning 20 chairs in a semicircle facing the chalkboard. On the chalkboard reads: “Each generation must find its purpose and once discovered, either fulfill or betray it.” Bob’s back is to the chalkboard and he is facing us. After he reads the quote out loud, his eyes meet mine, and I can tell that this will be between him and I. That is, his intention today is to see where I stand.

He begins:

“It’s been said that this is the most selfish generation. That all you guys do is take, take, take! You take away from your family the benefit of having a son, a brother, a father

“You take away from your sisters even when they have children and little to give, you don’t give a damn, you take. Then you come to prison and you don’t take advantage of the free services they provide, or the time. You guys don’t even take advantage of the free time you have. You still come to prison and want to take away from each other.

“In reality, when a brother takes from another brother, he is only taking from himself. He’s only hurting himself. Back in the day, we knew what the deal was; we knew our obstacles and how to overcome them.”

Sensing his conclusion I eased in:

“Bob, your career choice took you away from the hood and many others who could have been role models. Not just role models, but human resources. Your dollars, your taxes, your presence would have all balanced out the poverty and lack of fathers that now dominates the hood. You personally benefited from the Civil Rights Movement by having opportunities open to you that would have otherwise been closed.”

“Cook, where are you going with this man?”

“Bob, after every great movement in America comes a great loss.”

The students are now zoning out, dozing off, becoming even sleepier and somber from last night and from this morning’s medicine.

Bob looks at me with a serious face, followed by a slyness as if he was playing the devil’s advocate, testing my insight and intelligence. I’m neither serious nor solemn, but spirited.

“Cook, ‘after every great movement in America comes a great loss?’ Break that down for me?” I replied:

“To understand the forces that shaped generations we have to understand history. Bob you are like the first generation after the Emancipation Proclamation.” Testing me, he says:

“What happened after the Emancipation Proclamation, and why is it important today?” I answered:

“Today is a continuum of history. History never dies; it stretches itself into the present day. After the slaves were freed throughout the South, the U.S. Government tried to make right on their promise of fairness by setting up the Freedman’s Bureau, which was designed to right the wrongs of slavery.

“For like 12-years after 1865, Black people in the South thrived; becoming senators, congressmen, industrious as well as intellectual. The Union soldiers were stationed throughout the South to protect Blacks from White harm.

“With an equal playing field, the Freedman’s Bureau, and with the Union soldiers on guard, Blacks had a short moment in the sun. However, eventually the Freedman’s Bureau collapsed. The Union soldiers moved west to hunt and harm Indians, and Blacks were left to the oversight of their former enslavers.

“The KKK (Klu Klux Klan) was organized to take back the land, position, and power. White racists become the police, lawyers, judges and juries. To strike fear in Blacks, a wave of hangings, rapes and brute force was displayed.

“To implement their economy, sharecropping became another name for slavery, and “Black codes” were designed to jail Blacks for the slightest offense; and once arrested, they were rented out to their former slave master. This White backlash always follows Black progress.”

Bob looks at me not in agreement or disagreement, more with an indifference followed with curiosity of my angle.

I continued:

“This White backlash to Black progress never fails. It happens again with the Civil Rights Movement.”

I pause.

“After the gains of the Civil Rights Movement and the national atmosphere of healing America’s systematic racist wounds by passing legislation and the “War on Poverty” was declared, White people became fearful, not only of going to school, work, and coexisting with Blacks in the same social institutions, but they thought Blacks would take over those institutions and America as a whole. This White backlash reached its height with the election of Ronald Reagan.”

Bob sits back seeing if I’m on to something, or just ranting about my plight as a prisoner.

“Bob, before crack was a part of the ghetto’s economy, Ronald Reagan declared his war on drugs. Crack hit the scene in the mid ‘80s, the war on drugs was declared in ’81. At this time, drugs were not a high priority on Americas list for things it should tackle.

“However, through Reagan’s national campaign that involved the media, drugs became a national issue, so when crack hit the seen around ’84-’85, the nation was prepared to respond with brute force and not in a well thought out manner.

“After all Bob, drugs and drugs addiction is more than a crime, it is an economic and health issue. If under Michelle Obama obesity is a health issue, under Nancy Reagan crack should have been a health issue. But America was hell-bent on changing the image of Blacks from agents of social change to gangstas’, thugs, and zombielike addicts.”

Bob interrupts:

“Cook didn’t nobody tell y’all to sell crack. You did that with free will. You made a choice.”

Tempers flare as I feel he’s being narrow-minded and myopic, I’m sure he feels I’m being farfetched and denying personal responsibility.

“Let me finish Bob. When crack hit, years after the War on Drugs was declared, America was prepared to treat an economic and health issue purely as a criminal one. And even crack Bob, I think, was put in our communities on purpose.

“In 1998 the CIA admitted that the earnings of cocaine shipped from Nicaragua in the mid ‘ 80s into the ghettos of America was used to finance a war they were secretly involved in. They denied having a hand in these transactions. But it took 20 years until the U.S government admitted and apologized for using Black men in their experiments with syphilis that lasted for 30 years. I would not put it pass them.”

“As an older Black man, Bob’s relationship with America is, to quote comedian Chris Rock: ‘An uncle who paid your way through college, but raped you when you were young.’”

Bob is quiet, suggesting agreement and interest.

“Bob, you also have to look at the economy in the ‘80s. At a time when good paying factory jobs were leaving America for Asia and Mexico, Reagan was giving money to the top corporations with the idea being if you feed the top, it will trickle down to the bottom. But for most of America, the “top/down” approach never happened and communities–both Black and White–were changed. For Black America, there wasn’t a ‘stimulus package.’

“Okay Bob, say there are two 18-year-olds. One Black, one White. Both have a child on the way. Neither has academic ambitions, but just want to work 9-to-5 and live a stable life. Before the factories left both could be hired by a factory in their community and receive a mid-level income with benefits.

“Now in the ‘80s with deindustrialization, the Black 18-year-old had the crack economy as a substitute for the loss of well paying jobs, and the White 18-year-old had prison employment (a guard or warden) as a substitute.

“The thing is, one fed the other. Prison became an economic institution for both low-educated Whites and capitalists. It was like a cycle. Crack was dumped into our neighborhoods, crack dealers (who were Black) were dumped into prisons, and prisons fed low-educated Whites while capitalist lobbied state politicians like (former) Gov. (Tommy) Thompson to create tougher laws with stiff sentences for minor offenses. Not to decrease crime rates, but to insure their economic interest.

“’Truth-in-Sentencing’ is a prime example of a law that hasn’t worked and cost the state billions of dollars, but that money is providing jobs for Whites who would probably link forces with people of Color in their protest for a better America. The billions it cost the state is also going to Tommy Thompson and his cronies who sit on the broad of directors of these corporations that provide services to prisons.

“Look at Supermax (the Supermax in Boscobel) Bob. It cost the state 40 million to build and millions a year to keep operational. Boscobel is a prime example of a “stimulus package” to a small town and also reveals how lobbyists convinced Tommy Thompson to spear-head its construction, not out of an interest in reducing crime, but to earn capital.

“In Wisconsin, there are no notorious criminals or prisons. There was no need for a Supermax, but there was a need for money. First came Truth-in-Sentencing, and then came Supermax. Truth-in-Sentencing insured its population

Eventually the Supermax would be converted into a maximum prison facility when it’s realized its bed space wouldn’t be full with admission requirements based on the Supermax criteria because there aren’t enough super prisoners. Plus it opened the floodgates for vendors.

“So Bob, social policies like integration, affirmative action, or the War on Poverty, weren’t dominate shaping forces for my generation. However, the White backlash (to the positive social programs) was creating the ‘War on Drugs,’ which devastated a whole generation and, hell, probably saved another.”

“Listen to you Cook, you got it all figured out huh? You spoke about injustice and apathy from the government when it comes to Blacks. But how about the way you treat each other. You manipulate the weak when it’s to your advantage. Do you guys really care about justice, fairness, or just hate being victims of it?

“The same qualities these sick people you speak about have, you guys have them too, and use them– particularly on sisters. But when they are used on you, (all of the sudden) you care about justice now!

“But people don’t hear you or care. They don’t care about the plight of prisoners because you guys look and treated innocent people like the oppressor does. Unlike the past generations who were innocent, you guys might be getting the short end of justice, but the community doesn’t care. ‘Lock there a—up’ is how they feel because you hurt them. Your own people you hurt. Can you see where I’m coming from?”

“Yeah I agree.”

I look at bob acknowledging his truth in the same way he was looking at me acknowledging my truth.

here are demographic changes occurring in the United States that will change politics and public policy and make this country a more humane and equitable place. In another 20 to 30 years the U.S. will be a majority-minority country and White supremacy will be a discredited idea of the past.

But we are not living in that future time. And for African-Americans, more than half of whom live in the southern states, the facts do not speak to a just or equitable society.

Black unemployment is twice that of Whites. The average Black income is much less. Black family financial assets are one-twentieth that of Whites. There are large racial disparities in health and access to health care and much higher high school drop-out rates for African-Americans; and of course much higher incarceration rates.

The gains that African-Americans have seen since the Civil Rights movement were substantially built on Black votes and civic participation. But despite the hardship and struggles that many African-Americans face, there are many who would oppose the progress and promise the future holds. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder opened the door to widespread efforts in the South to diminish minority voting rights.

By invalidating Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, the court has effectively eliminated Section 5 federal oversight. The current U.S. House of Representatives will almost certainly NOT provide a new definition for Section 4 coverage, and so Section 5 is out for the foreseeable future.

By next year’s midterm elections, there will likely be photo identification laws operative in all the southern states, and Blacks and Hispanics are much more likely than Whites to lack government issued photo ids. The changes will not only involve photo identification laws.

There will be a headlong rush to change election laws across Section 5 jurisdictions in order to discourage minority voters. This will involve not only state governments but local ones as well.

Section 2 is still in effect, but with no preclearance provisions. What this means is that all sorts of election changes will be put into effect to diminish minority votes – moving and locating polling places, changing hours, the mechanics of voting – not to mention extralegal intimidation – without federal intervention.

Even when these changes are challenged and the civil rights community ‘wins’ the legal case, the minority community’s preferred candidate may still lose, and then the Section 2 cases result in consent decrees where the opposing side agrees not to do the same thing (actions to discourage minority voters) again – at least until the next election. The results of elections – even unfair elections – are rarely undone.

Following the election of President Barack Obama, some political observers – mostly conservative ones – suggested that the United States was now a post-racial society. At the present time, five years later, in the region of the country where a majority of African- Americans live, the South, there is strong statistical evidence that politics is resegregating with African-Americans once again excluded from power and representation.

Black voters and elected officials have less influence now than at any time since the Civil Rights Movement.

Less than a handful of the 320 Black state legislators in the South serve in the majority in their legislative chambers. And southern state constitutions invest in the state legislatures’ power over all aspects of government in those states, including local government.

Conservative Whites control all of the political power there, and they are enacting legislation and adopting policies both neglectful of the needs of minorities – in health care, education, employment – as well as some that are downright hostile to the rights of African-Americans , e.g., the assault on voting rights through photo identification laws and other means.

Last month, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies published a report based on a survey of the five Deep South states (the states with the proportionally largest black populations – Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina) on attitudes toward Medicaid expansion. Majorities of the populations in all five states, and large majorities of African-Americans in those states, favored expansion. The state legislatures in those five states oppose expansion, and the disproportionally uninsured Black populations of those states will suffer the consequences.

Has the United States become a more just and equitable society? Almost 50 years ago – around the time that the Lawyers’ Committee was founded, Robert F. Kennedy gave a speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention where he quoted from one of his brother’s favorite poets: “but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

David A. Bositis, Ph.D., a senior research associate for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, is a foremost expert on voting and Black political participation in America. This article – the twentieth of a 20-part series – is written in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, of which Congressman Lewis is grand marshal. The Lawyers’ Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar’s leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity – work that continues to be vital today. For more information, please visit www.lawyerscommittee.org.

NATIONWIDE (BlackNews.com) — On Monday, July 1, 2013, CNN aired the special program “N-word vs ‘Cracker’: Which Is Worse?” hosted and moderated by Don Lemon.

The segment stemmed from the George Zimmerman trial, coming as a result of the prosecution’s star witness’ claim that the late Mr. Trayvon Martin told her a “creepy ass ‘cracker’” was following him just moments before his life was unrightfully taken.

The defense attorney deftly took what Trayvon Martin was purportedly to have called Zimmerman – a “creepy ass cracker” – and successfully turned it into reverse racism.

The use of the term “cracker” caused a fast and furious fallout throughout White America, raising the question over which term is most offensive – cracker or n**ger – and prompting the discussion of what is racism?

In listening to this televised debate, it was realized that some may believe that the word “cracker” is equally as derogatory, demeaning, and dehumanizing as the n-word (n**ger/n**ga).

Even though arguments were had concerning the racial offensiveness of the term “cracker”, the unequivocal and unanimous consensus of the CNN panel was that “cracker” is not on the same plane by any means as the n-word given each term’s history, meaning, and purpose.

[To be clear, “n**ga” was undeniably meant to be racially offensive and dehumanizing, and was not based on the job/authority of the slave whipper (which is the origin of the word “cracker”).]

The defense attorney’s ability to take Mr. Martin’s use of the term “cracker” and turn it into a racist comment brought to light the question of whether or not black people can be racist?

This question strongly resonated with the American public and has given great cause to address the issue of racism, and its relationship in the Black community.

While it’s clear that when other races use the n-word it’s an issue of racism, deliberate efforts have been taken to refrain from making use of the n-word a racist issue in past commentaries.

Instead, diligent care is taken to focus efforts of eradicating use of the nword by the Black community, and helping blacks see the slights being caused by their own hand within their own community by referring to one another as “n**gas”.

Frankly, Black Americans’ self-internalization of the n-word is an issue all unto itself that must be addressed and fixed if Black America is to stand strongly, united, and effectively to fight the issue of racism external to the community.

However, as a result of the CNN special, the denigrating question “which is worse?”, and the manner in the discussion even came to be, an exception is being made in this case and racism will be given the attention it warrants.

To raise such a question of which term is more offensive is an invidious comparison and is really a slap in the face to the Black/African-American community.

Until the Zimmerman trial, “cracker” was just another word, albeit one that can be contextualized in a derogatory fashion. Redneck, honky, poor white trash are all derogatory terms, but are they racist terms?

Redneck and poor white trash are terms that originated amongst whites and when used by non-whites can take on a derogatory slant. Honky was ascribed to whites by black slaves – and literally means “red-eared person” or “white person” in the West African language Wolof, but is it racism?

Up to the Zimmerman trial, white people have never reacted in an ethnocentric fashion over a word attributed to them – except during the 60s when the Nation of Islam ascribed “Blue Eyed Devil” to white folks.

Cracker, redneck, and honky were just words but the term “Blue Eyed Devil” touched a nerve. Even Indians referred to the white man as “paleface” and as one who speaks with a fork tongue. But in any of these cases, can the minority groups really be considered racists? To answer the question, it is important to define, understand, and analyze what racism means exactly.

Firstly, racism is an unnatural demeanor invented by white people and did not exist until the enslavement of blacks. Racism is a power relationship between two groups. To be a racist, “one” group must have power and wealth to exact injustice upon “another” group. Black people have not been able to come together to deprive or hurt another group and, thus, are not in a position to even practice racism.

Some will argue that Minister Farrakhan is a racist but he IS NOT; rather, as opposed to kowtowing, going along just to get along, or being submissive to paternalism, he is reacting to unwarranted bigotry and oppression. Farrakhan and no other Black American is in a position to be a racist.

In the following video clip, Richard Pryor is not practicing racism, but is “reacting” to racism as opposed to being “submissive”: www.hulu.com/watch/1477

For more than five centuries, racism has legitimized assassinations, massacres and genocides. The doctrine of White Supremacy has demonized, brutalized and dehumanized non-whites of the earth. Racism has been the global driving force behind the dispossession of continents and the destruction of civilizations and the extermination of an entire people.

Despite the long struggle against racism, it continues to pollute people’s mental environment. Its enduring potency insures that people are denied opportunities, justice and human rights. Key institutions stay racially monolithic, and racial privilege endures as the recent Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Bill validates this truth.

The 1638 Maryland Doctrine of Exclusion became, and still is in this 21st century, the doctrine of racism towards black people.

As such, when black people go along just to get along, accepting the notion being advanced to them that when they react to racism that the “reaction” itself can be construed as reverse racism, is inaccurate and misleading and must always be rejected.

Other than the word n**ger, perhaps, the only other word in the English language that’s as infamous and profane would be the term racist – not “cracker”. The histories between these two words pretty much coincide, like hand and glove.

To call a white person a racist today is almost as bad as calling an African-American n**ger/n**ga – both words remind each of their pasts and bring to light all of the negative feelings, struggle and strife experienced during a time of inequality, injustice, and inhumanity. It can be very injurious and hurtful to a white person to erroneously be labeled a racist, as both racist and the n-word are volatile terms. Neither the n-word (n**ga) or the term racist should be used as loosely as both are today.

A bit of advice to White America relative to those Black Americans who use the n-word: The Black community is divided on the use of the insidious word n**ger/n**ga, a problem that Black America is going to have to work out for itself without any outside interference. Some non-blacks are genuinely concerned but the last thing they should do is get in the middle of something that their white forefathers created.

Whether non-blacks are discouraging and/or encouraging blacks about the use of the n-word, they are better served by simply being spectators.

Some white people are making the egregious error of verbalizing the desire to use the n-word, using the excuse that if blacks are doing it why should the term be off limits to them?

The larger question, though, is why are whites fanning the flames of racism by voicing such a desire? Two types of people use the n-word – racist people and those with an 18th century slave mentality. Respectable and honorable people, blacks and non-blacks alike, refrain from such usage.

Plainly, to call a black person racist is nonsense. Although Mr. Martin’s comment may seem offensive to White Americans, Mr. Martin’s was a response out of fear and frustration to the extreme racism/racial profiling and prejudiced he was experiencing in those final moments of life.

Mr. Martin was truly being treated like a “n**ga” for absolutely no reason at all; this situation in itself proves the truth that racism does still exist in America, and if the old ghosts of the past are to be buried once and for all, this unfair treatment of Black people must all come to an end, and Black America must also stop being complicit in their self-negation of labeling themselves as the n-word (n**ga).

Though you may not personally use the term, but condone use of it by others you are equally complicit.

In Part II or the second installment of this discussion, use of the n-word (n**ga) and those who participated on the CNN panel as invited guests will be discussed as their selection is most curious as well as their input.

H. Lewis Smith is the founder and president of UVCC, the United Voices for a Common Cause, Inc. (www.theunitedvoices.com); and author of “Bury that Sucka: A Scandalous Love Affair with the N-Word”. Follow H. Lewis Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thescoop1

Who is the most privileged among the least privileged? That’s the question many are asking as Americans discuss how the Supreme Court treated race-centered cases over the Voting Rights Act and affirmative action versus cases over same-sex marriage.

Are African Americans and other people of color, who are the most likely to face voter suppression, winners of the dubious prize of “most oppressed,” now that the court has struck down a key provision of one of the most important aspects of the civil rights struggle?

And how does that compare to the court’s treatment of gays and lesbians, which has seen a progressive sea change over the past 10 years?

Just follow last week’s headlines about the court’s decisions: “Why the Supreme Court Said ‘No to Blacks and Yes to Gays,’ ” blared an analysis by progressive Rabbi Michael Lerner. “Gay Is the New Black,” stated the overblown headline atop a nuanced New York Times article by Georgetown University law professor Paul Butler.

At every turn, there seemed to be a blunt-force reaction to the court’s landmark decisions, setting up the civil rights of gays and blacks as if it were a battle of winners versus losers.

But such headlines ignore the nuances within each group’s civil rights struggle. Indeed, Fordham University political science professor Christina Greer, author of the new book The Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream, calls comparing the court’s decisions not just apples and oranges but “apples and steak” — that is, possible to compare but highly differentiated.

America was founded with a national framework of racial segregation and exploitation. “All men are created equal” did not include black Americans, male or female. For better or worse, the concept of gay rights (or even gay existence) was not baked into our national framework. Indeed, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights struggle has been based upon the groundbreaking work of racial civil rights movements.

For sure, the fight for gay rights has its own unique history: Their battles are much more recent, and the legal strategies for LGBT rights have moved toward a more state-by-state framework that interacts with federal judicial decisions, versus the civil rights movement’s reliance on the federal government to protect rights that states would not. For the moment, with the current Supreme Court, that strategy seems to be working more quickly than a federal action-based rights strategy.

Indeed, the knee-jerk analysis missed all of the texture of each group’s history, as well as the intersecting identities of those who are black and gay.

Pam Spaulding, editor of the award-winning blog Pam’s House Blend, is a black woman legally married to her wife.

After Barack Obama was elected in 2008, at the same time that the anti-same-sex-marriage Proposition 8 passed in California, Spaulding recalls, “Vitriol was hurled at blacks that evening, and I recall on the Blend being on the receiving end of angry commenters — as if I had burned my ‘gay card,’ as my blackness, which clearly was not invisible to them before, was now a threat.”

I interviewed a Los Angeles-based black lesbian activist, Jasmyne Cannick, right after election 2008. She said, “The reason why I wasn’t inspired to work on Prop 8 was because that glass ceiling that the white gays are bumping their head up against is to a room that as a black person, I haven’t even got a foot in the door of. I’m just trying to put food on the table.”

And Stephen Winter, who identifies as a “black biracial queer,” told The Root, “My reaction to the decisions was numb rage turned to grief turned to fiery rage.

This was, indeed, a great day for DOMA [the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act], and a total s–t week for the country. First they come for our right to vote, then they will come for yours.

You’ll be happily married and completely disenfranchised. This week I saw a glimpse of what could be. As a result, I joined the NAACP for the first time.”

Urvashi Vaid, author of Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class, and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics, reminds us that people of color and LGBT Americans not only overlap but also have much in common when it comes to their civil rights.

“First, it’s imperative to be vigilant because laws you thought were settled can be rolled back in a very short amount of time [e.g voting rights, reproductive rights],” she told The Root.

“Second, the defeat of voting rights and the remand on affirmative action makes clear that the court is an agent of the Republican Party, which cannot win with its current politics in a majority-people of color country, and so has to resort to dirty tricks, voter suppression and wholesale denial of voting rights to large parts of the population.

“The Supreme Court did us a favor because it made this less visible reality extremely visible — as states now pass extremely restrictive laws — so setbacks can be really good educational and organizing moments. This is one.”

So the question remains: What will happen to the fights for equality in America, particularly over racial equality and/versus equality based on sexual orientation? The Supreme Court is framed as a nonpartisan branch of government, but justices are appointed by presidents, each of whom has a partisan affiliation.

And of course, race — and which races vote for which parties — influences who the president is and who he (or, in the future, perhaps, she) chooses. In this past election, for the first time ever, the percentage of African Americans who voted exceeded that of whites. And in addition, Latino voters were much more likely to pull the Democratic lever for president than they were during the Bush years.

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund lawyer Natasha Korgaonkar lays out some ways to draw relationships between the issues the court decided. “The marriage decisions are a very significant and important victory for equal protection. What these cases and issues share is that they’re about equality, equality for everyone, regardless of who you are. That’s a relationship I see between the two issues.”

She continues, “People need to have an unencumbered right to vote in all states — not only because the right to vote is enshrined in our constitution but because it’s through that right we can make significant gains on all issues, including marriage equality.”

Korgaonkar calls on Congress to take action, as it did when it reauthorized the Voting Rights Act in 2006 under President George W. Bush. But it’s far from a sure thing that this riven Congress will pass a bipartisan voting rights measure amid the sequester and general legislative gridlock.

In other words, the final act of the drama of American equality has yet to be written. With immigration, gender, sexual orientation and race all in play — on the streets and in the courts — it’s hard but critical work to put the pieces of the political puzzle together.

So, returning to the question of the day, is gay the new black?

The best answer seems to be: That’s apples and steak, isn’t it?

Farai Chideya is a distinguished writer in residence at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Institute for Journalism. A contributing editor at The Root, she is the author of four books and blogs at farai.com.

The Supreme Court’s decision to tear out the heart out of the Voting Rights Act should serve as a call to action for all Americans who care about protecting our democracy.

Until Congress steps in, we are without the best defense we have to stop efforts to suppress the votes of millions of people of color. Before the ruling, the places with the very worst ongoing records of discrimination were required to submit proposed voting changes to the federal government for review before those changes went into effect. This is important because some states’ ability to enact novel and contemptible methods to discriminate against African-American, Latino, Asian American, and Native American voters far outpaces the courts’ ability to strike down each and every such scheme on a case by case basis.

Now this requirement to get voting changes approved only exists on paper because the Supreme Court said Congress should come up with a new list of places where the requirement should apply. We must call on Congress to act with urgency so that we do not backtrack on the progress that has been made.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to debilitate Section 5, Alabama wasted no time in vowing to implement a new photo identification law—a law that has the potential to burden the poor, the elderly, and voters of color in Alabama. Texas, where Section 5 blocked the implementation of one of the nation’s most racially discriminatory photo ID laws and redistricting plans, is seeking to implement those measures immediately. The Supreme Court’s decision leaves these voters without the essential protections of Section 5 to block these measures before their implementation.

Hubris, as Justice Ginsburg wrote in her dissenting opinion, characterizes the Supreme Court’s faulty determination that current voting experiences in Alabama, Texas, or the other places formerly protected have no relationship to those states’ histories of racism. I dare say that many Black citizens of Alabama see a straight line of racial discrimination from slavery through Reconstruction to the Bloody Sunday March and the enactment of the Voting Rights Act through to the present.

Take, for example, Dallas County, Alabama, where, in the City of Selma, extraordinary citizens marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in protest of decades-long racial discrimination in voting. These heroes risked—and, in the case of some, sacrificed—their lives in the notorious events of Bloody Sunday. The Voting Rights Act was passed five months after these tremendous acts of bravery.

Before this past Tuesday’s ruling, Section 5 protected voters in Dallas County from local officials’ persistent efforts to move from one evasive tactic to another to minimize the power of the Black vote in Alabama. In the 1980s, because of Section’s 5 protections, Selma was prevented from implementing discriminatory redistricting plans and ordinances. In the 1990s, Section 5 blocked Dallas County’s attempt to purge Black voters from the rolls, and prevented the County from imposing racial quotas to minimize Black electoral opportunity. As recently as 2010, Alabama elected officials were caught on tape referring to Black voters as “illiterates” and “Aborigines.”

The Supreme Court’s decision is divorced from the well-documented reality that circumvention of voting rights persists to this day in Alabama and the other previously covered places. We have, indeed, made significant progress towards fulfilling our democracy’s promises, as evident by the historic participation of African- American, Latino, and Asian-American voters in the 2008 and 2012 elections, and by our having twice elected an African-American President. But in spite of these undeniable strides, race still matters in voting access in this country. Nowhere is this more evident than in Alabama, where, in August 2008, the City of Calera in Shelby County attempted to draw new redistricting lines that would have eliminated the city’s only majority African-American district by cutting its composition from 70% registered Black voters to just 29.5%. That district, brought about by litigation, was a remedy to over 100 years of voting discrimination in Alabama. With Section 5 in place, that discriminatory redistricting change was blocked.

The brilliance of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is that it ensures that communities of color can count on their right to vote and to have their votes count on an equal basis. Section 5 did this by preventing discrimination from taking root. But without a list of covered areas in this country, Section 5 is powerless.

By developing and passing legislation to get a new coverage provision, Congress can fix the serious risks that the Supreme Court’s decision has created. Legislators of both parties have an interest, and an obligation, to ensure that every American can vote, and can rely on her vote counting. Just seven years ago, in 2006, 98 Senators and 390 House members reauthorized the Voting Rights Act, recognizing that Section 5 is still a vital tool to protect our democracy.

Each of us also has a role to play in ensuring that Congress achieves this fix. It is now our charge to remind Congress of the importance of Section 5.

So here’s how you can participate in keeping Section 5 alive.

– Contact your federal legislators in the Senate and in the House. Ask them to stand by their 2006 vote (98-0 in the Senate and 390-33 in the House) to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act.

– You also can support this petition started by the NAACP to urge Congress to pass new legislation to save the Voting Rights Act.

– Join the Campaign to Restore Voting Rights, led by the Leadership Conference Education Fund.

– Contact your state legislators to request that they pass new state laws to protect your right to vote.

– Collect your stories about voting changes in your community that you believe may be discriminatory, and tell my organization, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, about them at [email protected] Thousands of voting changes are made every year, whether on the state, county, or local level. Changes to federal and state congressional districts attract attention, but the seemingly “small” changes— such as moving a local polling place, or switching from district to at-large voting—often have the most significant impacts on our communities. Be vigilant about documenting voting discrimination where it may exist. These are our charges. It’s up to Congress and us to ensure that the Supreme Court’s disgraceful ruling is only a page, not a dark chapter, in our nation’s history.

Leah Aden is an Assistant Counsel in the Political Participation Group of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

President Barack Obama (L) and first lady Michelle Obama (C) are greeted by Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Mkoana-Mashabne after arriving at Waterkloof Air Force Base June 28, 2013 in Pretoria, South Africa. This is Obama’s first official visit to South Africa, where is schedule to hold bilaterial meetings with President Jacob Zuma, host a town hall meeting with students in Soweto Township and visit Robben Island, where former President Nelson Mandela spent some of his 27 years in prison for fighting against apartheid. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

by Lola Adesioye–TheGrio.com

As President Barack Obama embarks on the first major trip to Africa of his presidency on Thursday, those of us who have been studying the continent for some time cannot help but understand just how vital this trip is to America’s political and economic future and to the securing of its relationship with the continent which is, without a doubt, on its way to becoming one of the world’s most powerful regions.

In the years since President Obama was first elected in 2008, the world as we know it has changed dramatically. The fortunes of the west have been on the decline, with recurring recessions and economic stagnation, while prosperity in the emerging world – Africa, especially – has been on a steep upward curve.

According to recent statistics released by the International Monetary Fund, Sub-Saharan Africa is now the second fastest growing region in the world behind Asia, and five of the ten fastest growing countries in the world are African. None of the fastest growing economies are, by the way, located in the western hemisphere.

Africa can no longer be ignored

Coupled with a huge youth population and a growing middle class, as well as large and lucrative untapped markets for trade and investment, Africa is not a place that any administration can afford to ignore.

Unfortunately, contrary to what many Africans had expected from the first American president of African descent, President Obama’s sole 24-hour visit to Ghana in 2009 served only to signal that the U.S. had not adequately recognized the rapid turn around that the continent was undergoing.

Comments made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about China’s relationship with Africa on a longer trip to the continent in 2012 were also perceived by many to be condescending and symptomatic of an older, more paternalistic attitude towards the continent and also suggested to Africans that the U.S. was not willing to participate in what was going on in the continent in a new, progressive and meaningful way. Other efforts by the administration have also been criticized as not going far enough and lacking in substance.

As a result, the U.S. has unwittingly allowed its competitor China – now Africa’s largest trading partner – to gain a very deep foothold on the continent, which – considering China’s growing economic and political might – is not something that America wants. To put that in some context, Sino-African trade currently stands at some $200 billion and is expected to increase to $325 billion within the next couple of years while American trade with Africa fell from a high of $104.1 billion in 2008, to $94.3 billion in 2011. In other words, the U.S. has a lot of catching up to do.

Open for business?

On trip to Africa, therefore, President Obama needs to make up for lost time and to demonstrate to African leaders that the U.S. is open for doing business with Africa – and that it can do so better and perhaps more ethically than the Chinese, who have taken an ask-no-questions approach to investing and providing loans which potentially allows human rights and political abuses and violations to go unchecked.

With all that being said, it is worth asking why it is that, out of 54 countries, President Obama has chosen to go to Senegal (West Africa), South Africa and Tanzania (East Africa).

Of all the West African nations, Nigeria, arguably the most powerful West African nation (and certainly the wealthiest), is the first place that comes to mind when one thinks about a presidential visit. There are, of course, good reasons for going to Senegal.

Apart from being beautiful (as all three of these countries are), Senegal, which gained its independence from France in 1960, is relatively stable compared to surrounding regions such as Mali which have been suffering from the effects of political and religiously-motivated violence and terrorism in recent times.

A majority-Muslim nation, it is an example of how democracy can work alongside Islam. It is, therefore, a political and economic safe point for America and is one of the nations that can be an ally in advancing the democratic cause in Africa. Its current leader President Macky Sall, with whom President Obama will meet in the capital Dakar on Thursday, was elected peacefully and democratically in 2012.

South Africa and the U.S. have always enjoyed a positive relationship. It is politically and economically stable, and there is much that the U.S. has in common, historically, with the country. It is, like the U.S., steeped in an extraordinary racialized history of legalized discrimination and segregation, but it has also turned away from that past and embraced a democratic process that allows all South Africans to have a voice and a vote.

There is much that the U.S .and South Africa could learn from one another when it comes to advancing race relations.

In the shadow of Mandela

South Africa has also given rise to transformational leaders such as Nelson Mandela, who spent 30 years in prison for his fight against the apartheid regime. Although currently in critical condition, he remains a defining international figure who is also a voice of reason not just in South Africa but on the continent in general, and who President Obama – who is also advocating for the next generation of African leaders – could use as a figurehead for the kind of African leadership that the U.S. would support.

Tanzania is the East African country that many analysts would not have expected President Obama to visit, thinking instead that he may have gone to Kenya, the birthplace of his father. Tanzania is, however, not only politically stable and peaceful, ranking as the most peaceful country in Sub Saharan Africa, but it is also one of China’s major African trading partners.

There’s no doubt that there is a competitive element motivating their featured role on President Obama’s tour. China’s president Xi Jinping has already visited Tanzania this year and has openly showed his commitment to working closely with the country. Tanzania is one country in particular that exemplifies how the U.S. has fallen behind, with contracts that have been awarded by the U.S. to Tanzania for infrastructure projects now being fulfilled and completed by Chinese workers.

This visit to Africa, and to these three countries specifically, will be a defining moment for the relationship between Africa and America, particularly in the so-called Obama Era. The only difference is that unlike in the past, where it was Africa seeking America’s help, this time it’s very much the other way around.

We write this open letter to you today as a Black and a White woman living in the south to express our shared deep pain, disbelief, and mixed reactions to your admitted use of racial slurs and all that has happened since.

We’re also professional social workers committed to anti-racism education, who believe in the deep and beautiful transformational power of racial healing and reconciliation.

We want to say up front that we would love to forgive you for using the N word — not that you need or want our forgiveness.

We applaud your courage and respect your decision to disclose circumstances in which you have used language that is widely considered offensive.

We know that this era of “political correctness” makes it extremely difficult for all of us to grow and learn when we’re not allowed to be messy complicated human beings in a culture that has very little tolerance for contradictions. Our own President, despite is unique position, can’t talk about race without it being used a political weapon against him.

We also know from personal experiences how hard it is to bring up issues of race or share our anxieties about it with one another without it triggering a lot of pain and distrust.

We get it. That said, we want to be perfectly clear with you that what most people are angry and hurt about is not that you used the N word earlier in your life — we can get over that. What’s harder to get over is your unwillingness to take responsibility for it. Despite your visible agony, you appear to be in agony only for yourself, while overlooking the broader context and consequences of your comments, particularly as they relate to systemic racism and your unexamined white privilege.

You also don’t have to keep reminding us that you are a “good person.” We believe you. This is why we don’t buy it when you say, “I is what I is and I am not changing.” Didn’t you once suffer from the debilitating mental illness of agoraphobia? We admire that you didn’t give in and give up to mental illness. You got help and healed.

Racism is debilitating too, and it won’t go away or get better without a willingness to face it. If you are not willing to change, we must all assume that you are unwilling to look at the workplace racism for which you are accused.

We must also assume that you are unwilling to ensure that you provide the best working conditions possible, free from racist and sexist practices.

We hope this is not true. You have access to enormous resources and power that most do not. You can use your access to transform culture.

To be honest, we write to you because we believe that you are a “good person.” As Rev. Jesse Jackson said, you are not to blame for racial intolerance.

However, as two women with southern roots too, one born and educated in a rural southern community, we are troubled with the perceptions you have presented to the world that to be southern is to be racist.

It’s more complicated than that.

What makes people racist is their unwillingness to acknowledge it in the first place combined with an unwillingness to take steps to change — exactly what you keep doing.

We understand the environment in which you were raised. Nevertheless, we’re offended that you fail to use this painful moment of public embarrassment as a powerful opportunity to remind the world that intention and impact are not mutually exclusive — good people can be racist too. Furthermore, having Black “friends” doesn’t make you racially pure or immune from racist tendencies. We know because of the anti-racism work we do as social workers that no one can claim to be racially pure or free from racism in society entrenched in a history of white supremacy.

The truth is, we’ve all internalized racism. Having Black friends is no substitution for actively engaging in anti-racist work. Loving Black people doesn’t make you any less racist than someone who does not.

You can’t wash off racism with a few Black friends like a bar of soap. To stay clean and free from the filth and grime of a polluted culture, we must bathe every day, right? Doing anti-racism work is the same thing. It takes a persistent committed effort and intention every day of our lives to clean off the dirt and grime of a culture polluted by a legacy of racist policies, beliefs, and practices.

When you’re entertained by the idea of a plantation style southern wedding with an all Black wait-staff, it glorifies the terrible Holocaust of African slavery. It also tells us that you have a long way to go in unlearning racism, but you can begin now.

We know this won’t be easy, so we’re offering you our support. We’ve included in this letter a few ideas that we hope will help you shift this conversation away from interpersonal racism and all of your millions in losses in endorsement deals to the work of dismantling structural oppression.

More than anything else, we hope to help you use this painful experience to teach the world about how normalized racial discrimination is in our culture and that the work of dismantling racism is bigger than who can and cannot use the N word.

You can remind the world that “good white people” can be racist too, and can change if there’s a willingness to deal with what it means to benefit from a system of unearned white privileges to the detriment of people of color.

Here are a few suggestions for moving forward that we hope will help broaden our conversations and start the healing process:

Southern women are brave, strong, and authentic, so stop making excuses and looking for the world to rescue you. Stop playing the victim. Stop scapegoating your past, environment, and age, and take responsibility for your comments.

In social work social justice education we learn that the first step to anti-racism work is coming to terms with our own internalized biases and privileges. We all have them, so stop making excuses for yours. You can’t stop something you’re unwilling to see. Take a social justice class or an anti-racism training.

Read a book (we recommend Audre Lorde’s “Sister Outsider” or anything written by bell hooks for starters). Do the work to understand your own internalized racism and begin the long painful journey of unlearning racism. It’s never too late.

Stop using your Black friends as a shield. Do the hard work of reaching out to the community you have offended. Don’t just ask for forgiveness, but demonstrate through action that you understand the power of your comments by eliminating racism and sexism and all forms of oppression within your empire by evaluating your business practices and policies through a race equity lens.

Use your powerful media platform and become a meaningful white ally. Support a call to action to end racial inequality in our culture. Become an anti-racist activist. Remind the world that racism is a systemic institutionalized issue that cannot be fixed by simply going after people who use racist offensive language. You can begin by advocating for raising the minimum wage and improving the overall working conditions for people in the service and food industries, particularly in your own restaurants and businesses.

Stop cashing out on a legacy that marginalizes and alienates the very people who helped to build it—Black southern women dating back to slavery—without giving credit and acknowledgment to them. Use your enormous brand to remind the world how Black women in the south helped to create the culture and foods for which you are now famous.

Give back to them by giving them credit and opening doors of opportunities. Stand up and fight racist sexist systems, policies, and practices the exclude them and benefit you.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but we feel it’s a good start and very doable.

Finally, we’re calling on you as southerners, as women, and as social workers and advocates to please stop acting like the victim and stand up for all of us. Stop trying to emotionally manipulate us with your tears and face the truth about your comments and actions. Use your enormous gifts and privileges to promote racial justice. Work to change hearts and minds. Most of all, change the practices that perpetuate inequity in our culture; begin in your own heart and work.

We live in a world with enough judgment and contempt for one another. We hope our tough love message to you doesn’t add to that, but helps to transform this conversation and debate so that we’re all the better for it.

In forgiveness, hope, and love,

Crystal and Olivia

Crystal Hayes is a social work scholar, educator, and activist. Crystal can be reached via Twitter @motherjustice. Olivia Reeser is a Master of Social Work Candidate and can be reached via Twitter @socialjusticeagent.